


Catechisms

by felsider (VSSAKJ)



Series: Eternal War: Birthrights [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Child Abuse, Gen, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-14 08:05:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16909242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VSSAKJ/pseuds/felsider
Summary: “What do you think it means to be a man who belongs to the King?”





	Catechisms

_What are you? I am a loyal citizen._

Father bobbed his head and shifted his feet and pushed my head down while he spoke, making me bend. “Thank you, thank you for taking the time to meet us. This is my boy, Bast, and he should serve the kingdom.”

The Counsellor looked me over—I could tell he wasn’t impressed. Why would he be? I didn’t look like anything but a skinny kid with bruises on his face and hair that hadn’t been cut in too long. He sniffed, and addressed Father, “What do you think he offers us?”

Father pinched the back of my neck and I straightened up like he wanted me to. Then he clapped me on the shoulder and pushed me in front of him. “He goes between places. He takes people with him. I give him to you, to do His Majesty’s will!”

“Teleportation.” Someone murmured, and I learned a new word. It meant the thing that I could do—I just knew.

“Show us!” The Counsellor pronounced, but when I started to move, Father squeezed my shoulder so hard I winced. No one noticed. The Counsellor waved at some people behind him, and two of them came towards me. One was a tall woman with long black hair; she smiled at me. The other was a redheaded soldier in a fancy uniform; he smiled at me, too. It made me warm, even though I was already sweaty.

They all stood there, looking at me.

“Stay in this room, boy.” Father snarled at me, under his breath.

_‘I know.’_ I wanted to say. _‘“Don’t give them any cause to doubt.”’_

I raised my hands and pointed at theirs. “I need to touch you.” The woman’s hands were already bare, smooth and soft. She extended her fingers to me like I was a real nobleman. The soldier pulled off his glove before I could hold his hand—it was hot and a bit clammy, but I could feel the calluses on his thumb.

Doing the thing was always easy. All I needed was to know where I was going. I picked the side of the room behind the other nobles: in a blink, we were there.

“Goodness.” The woman murmured; I watched her eyes dart around as she oriented herself. The soldier didn’t speak at all, but his hand gripped mine tighter than it had before we went. By the time the Counsellor was turning around, I’d decided on our next place.

Then we were behind my father. Then we were next to the table near the entrance of the audience chamber. Then we were back where we started. “Stop!” The Counsellor shouted, and I froze. Father’s fingers dug into my shoulders before I even let go of them, but the woman crouched in front of me, pushing her hand between his hurt and me. Her hand was probably the nicest thing that had ever touched me.

“Does it hurt you to do that?” She asked, serious and soft at the same time.

I shook my head; Father squeezed with his other hand and I spoke up, “No.”

“Is it hard for you to do?”

“No.”

“Does it ever make you tired?”

“No.”

Father interrupted, clapping his hand on my back like he was proud of me. “My Bast’s the best boy you could get for this. He can do it all the time, anytime, anywhere. As many people as you need! He should be made useful.”

The woman stood and crossed her arms over her middle; I watched her walk back to the Counsellor and speak in his ear behind her hand. The Counsellor looked serious, nodding several times, and then looked at Father. “We agree with your assessment. From today, young Bast shall be in the employ of His Majesty the King.”

 

_Who are you? The son of my father, a man of the King._

For a while, I was the youngest person in the castle’s employment. They provided a room for Father and me, and started testing me. They made me go places so far off I could barely see them; they took me places and then made me go back a week later. They made me go to places in paintings—some of them worked and some of them didn’t. They made me try to go places I’d never seen, just pointing at places on maps and telling me to take them.

I couldn’t do it, and I cried.

Father hit me for my tears, shouting, “Are you a traitor like your mother? You’ve got to do it, boy! Give them no reason to doubt!”

“I can’t!” I sobbed, shielding my face. He rapped me with the rod; I shook my head desperately. “I don’t know where it is! I don’t know what it looks like! I can’t go places like that!”

I never took less than two people anywhere. They didn’t trust me—it made me try harder. One time, they made me lie on my back and got as many soldiers as they could to touch part of me, then told me to go to the other big courtyard in the back of the castle grounds. There were ten soldiers, plus me, and we all got there okay. When I brought them all back, one by one, I saw the woman from my first day watching me. She was speaking to the Counsellor behind her hand again, and pointing in my direction. I couldn’t feel proud after that.

Father pounced on me the moment we were back in our room, shaking me by the shoulders. “What have you done, Bast? Why was the Spymaster pointing at you?!”

That woman, the Spymaster?

Father slapped me and roared, “WHAT WERE YOU DOING?”

“Nothing!” I screamed back, pulling away from his grip. “I wasn’t doing nothing but serving the King!” I didn’t know why he was hitting me, or why he was so angry, but I never did, not really. I knew I needed people to believe me. I knew I needed to be good. What I didn’t know what why trying my hardest kept hurting so bad.

The next day, my lip was swollen up and my leg hurt too much for me to walk properly. The Counsellor took one look at me and turned to leave. I panicked—I didn’t mean to, but I lurched forward, feeling tears start to form in my eyes. “Please! I just want to serve! I swear I am a man of the King, now and always, to the last of my days!”

The Counsellor paused, looking back at me over his shoulder. I could barely see his face, but he looked confused. I think he spoke twice: I only heard him the second time. “Where did you learn that?”

“I say it every day, sir.” I remembered the term of respect at the last moment. “For as long as I can remember.”

The Counsellor shook his head, and walked away. I stayed where I was, huddled into a ball and shaking. One of the soldiers—the redheaded one, from my first day, I realised later—came over and patted my back, speaking softly to me. “Buck up, kid. It’ll be okay. You’ll get sorted out. You’re one of us now.”

One of them?

The Counsellor came back with the woman—the Spymaster. She thanked the soldier who was comforting me, and told me to follow her. Numb, I rose shakily to my feet and walked in her shadow, trying to hide the pain in my gait. I think she slowed down for me.

She took me into a room with a wall of shelves, stacked with books, and a big desk in the middle, in front of a window. She pointed to a couch opposite the shelves, and told me to make myself comfortable. Then she left me alone there.

I stood still for a second before going over to the couch like she told me to; sitting on it was like sleeping on a grassy hill in the sun, in the middle of warm weather. I hadn’t realised there could be so many books in the world—Father had taught me to read, a little, but it had been a while since I’d done any. All the books the Spymaster had looked too heavy for me to lift, and I thought they would probably be too hard for me to read.

When she came back in, she had a tray with biscuits on and two cups of tea. She set it down in the middle of the couch and settled onto the opposite side, smiling at me. I was confused.

“Have a biscuit, if you like.” She offered, so I took one. It was crumbly and sweet, and reminded me that my mouth hurt. I let my hand drop to rest on my leg with the biscuit half-finished.

She frowned a little, but held her cup to her lips and began speaking. “Lord Hallas is concerned for your well-being, Bast.”

Was that the Counsellor? I didn’t want to get it wrong, so I didn’t say anything.

“I am, too.” When I didn’t answer, she sighed a little and sipped from her tea. “Hallas told me you said you’re a man of the King, now and always, to the last of your days. What does that mean to you, Bast?”

The inside of me went cold, and I watched my hands start to shake. I licked my lips. “It means I don’t do anything that would cause people to doubt.”

“Mmm. What does that mean?”

“It means I’m not a traitor like my mother.” I recited the words, and in front of the Spymaster, I felt like I’d never understood what they meant. She kept looking at me like she wanted me to say more, so I mumbled on, watching the crumbs of the biscuit scatter over my trouser leg. “She left when I was a baby. To go back to the country where she came from.”

“Do you want to go find her?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know who she is. This is my country, where I was born. I’ve always been a part of this place, even if I look different to everyone else. All the places I want to go are here.”

“What do you think it means to be a man who belongs to the King?” The Spymaster asked, so still she seemed almost like a statue.

It wasn’t a question I could answer with the words Father had given me. I thought about what I would want if I was a King, and what kind of things would make me feel safe. “A man who… protects the King. A man who puts the King’s life before theirs, because he’s more important. A man who thinks the King is the most important person in the country. In the world.” I corrected myself quickly, and I could see the Spymaster smiling a little, in the corner of her mouth. “A man who decides to do things because they’re good for the King. And someone who the King wants.”

“Someone who the King wants, hmm?” The Spymaster slid to her feet, placing the tea cup down on her desk. She wrote something down, then went to the door and passed it through to someone I couldn’t see. “Do you know what, Bast? I like that answer very much.”

Something bright burst up inside my chest, and I felt myself grinning big and wide.

 

_Where and when are you? At my King’s hand, always, before he needs even to reach._

They made Father leave. Lady Helene said he protested very much.

I was given a new room of my own, near the Kingsguard barracks. Lord Hallas continued to oversee my induction into castle life, and kept training me for the job only I could do. I never wore a weapon: they taught me that just being me was the best defense I could have. Once I knew the castle well enough, Lord Hallas installed a box on the outside of the barracks, where people would drop off tasks for me to complete. It was simple stuff, back then, mostly collections and deliveries, but sometimes the Kingsguard would set up chains of tasks that would lead me to them at the end of the day.

After a few years, the Kingsguard trained my reflexes, by attacking me and making me port all over the courtyard. I thought about Father less and less as I grew up. Kingsguardsmen came and went, and I stayed.

It was almost ten years after I first came to the castle that I was given my token, my proof. I started doing the King’s business in true, all over the countryside. Everyone knew who I was. And everyone knew ol’ Bast was a King’s Man.

**Author's Note:**

> In his canon, Bast is older again than implied at the end of this work and still in the employ of his King. He is happily involved with a long-term partner, Hadrian, but their relationship is secret due to the views of some people close to them. He has no contact with his father.


End file.
